Chinese cities will soon enjoy more basketball court facilities courtesy of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

According to Xinhuanet, the NBA has a budget of $1.6 million or approximately 10 million Yuan allotted for the construction of the said courts. Their primary project started with building three basketball courts in Shenzhen's Longgang Universiade Center, Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower Plaza and Chongqing's High Tech Sports Plaza. The project was agreed upon by both China's Vice Minister for Education Hao Ping and NBA China CEO David Shoemaker.

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The plan to rebuild and refurbish basketball courts in some key cities in China is to expand the basketball education in the country, as well as to partner with the youth development in Chinese schools.

In a statement made by David Shoemaker, he said "We thank the Chinese Ministry of education for its partnership which demonstrates our mutual commitment to growing the sport of basketball in China."

While the timing could have been more obvious, according to Shanghaiist, the promotion may have also been a cover up for the bad press that former NBA superstar Allen Iverson expressed the media about his bad experience, promoting basketball in China.

The bad press that went downhill from delayed passports, visas to agent miscommunication have made Iverson decide not to go back to the country where he primarily considered as one of the greatest fans of the NBA. Despite the mishaps, agent Abdur-Rahim said, "I've been around a lot of stars. But traveling with Iverson was unbelievable. It's overwhelming, I saw people chasing down cars or sleeping outside near the hotel just to see him."

To highlight the said project, a group of Chinese students from the Tsinghua High School Varsity Team attended a basketball clinic in Housted that lasted for six days, from June 16-21. The basketball clinic is supervised by  Kevin Burleson, Houston Rocket's Player development Coach.

In Shoemaker's statement published in Shanghai Daily, he also said, "The NBA is delighted to be part of the sixth Consultation on People - to - People exchange and we are ready to make our youth development efforts to the next level with this RMB 10 million investment to build basketball courts through China."

Tags NBA news, NBA China, National Basketball Association